A few tips from the marketing doctor for a social-media healthy 2016.
A talk from Guy Kawasaki is like a visit with your favorite doctor. You hear the usual guidance: you need to eat healthier, exercise more and lose weight. He updates you on the latest advances in medicine. Plus, he has an authoritative but likable manner that inspires you to do better.
In our December meeting “Doctor” Guy treated Social Media Dallas to a house call and spoke on the topic “How to Perfect Your Personal Marketing.” He first emphasized the need to gear content to short attention spans, saying we live in a “Tinder” and not an eHarmony world. That means your personal brand needs to be consistent and immediately recognizable across all platforms. Avatars and cover pages need to instantly convey that you are likable, trustworthy and competent. Although it sounds like common sense, he showed tons of examples from individuals and brands that flunk the test.
Guy emphasized additional points covered in “The Art of Social Media,” which he authored with Peg Fitzgerald.
- Avatars should be face only
- Asymmetric
- Front lit
- Consistent
Other artistic preferences for social posts, presentations and even business cards:
- Use simple, large size fonts (age of oldest person in room % 2 = presentation font size!)
- Black backgrounds make more eye-catching slides
- Shoot horizontally, not vertically
- Crop Crap Constantly
It’s really important to create compelling content. NPR was heralded as an example of an organization whose content is so interesting, people will tolerate an interruption for a pledge drive. How can you make your content that interesting? A handy rule of thumb is “does your content pass the re-share test? Will people like it enough to re-share with others?”
Guy moved from artistic recommendations to the latest science on social media. By far the most controversial advice was on posting frequency. Conventional wisdom says that too frequent posting or repeated posting of the same content turns off your followers. Guy’s own research has indicated that re-posting on different days and times yields almost the same engagement that the original post does. In fact, he and his team post 85X a day on Twitter!
Readers, what are your opinions on posting frequency? Does posting frequently feed the problem of “post pollution” or is it a necessary requirement in a world that’s clamoring for attention? How often do you post?
Guy’s slides are available here.
We’d like to thank Dickey’s for some tasty barbecue, and Fonality, our event sponsor. who made the program possible. Fonality is a business communications provider, with mobile and on-line solutions that enable small and medium business workers work from anywhere, and get stuff done! Fonality will be our sponsor through 1Q2016.
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